Even amid the pandemic, tons of tech, social media and e-commerce giants have either expanded into or beefed up their presence in Toronto with new downtown offices in recent months, including but not at all limited to Google, Tiktok, Netflix, Reddit, DoorDash, Pinterest, Uber, IBM and Wayfair.

The ever-growing metropolis has been a boon for these companies for a reasons such as its obvious economic potential, human capital and "business friendliness," all of which it rates extremely well on, according to a new ranking from fDi Intelligence that puts T.O. second on the list of top cities for such industries in all of the Americas.

The rankings for 2021/2022's top "cities of the future" in the Americas from fDi, a publication from the Financial Times.

The specialist publication's Americas Cities of the Future study assesses how major cities in this part of the world measure up as far as their level of foreign investment and how much faith big companies appear to have in them — as well as the reasons behind that faith.

Toronto moved up from third overall in 2019/2020 to second in 2021/2022, just behind New York City and before tech hub San Francisco, all based on the aforementioned economic potential, business friendliness, and human capital, as well as lifestyle, cost effectiveness, overall "connectivity" to global markets, and other factors.

Things like how easy it is for companies to find qualified employees in a given place, the number of universities there, how skilled their graduates are, and even what the public transportation is like are all taken into account, as is the interest level of investors and the number of projects and expansions taking place.

Last year, Toronto was named the tech centre of Canada and a global hotspot for tech talent — especially from new immigrants that choose Canada over the U.S. — and is clearly growing fast.

#Toronto moves up in fDi’s Americas Cities of the Future study

News release: https://t.co/y6xybjXq6W pic.twitter.com/iGlIfFgNT7

— City of Toronto (@cityoftoronto) June 18, 2021

While the 6ix took the second spot overall and ranked well in various sub-categories, some other nearby Ontario cities were also recognized by the international ranking.

Mississauga and Hamilton placed first and second, respectively, on fDi's Mid-Sized Americas Cities of the Future list, which examined the same above criteria.

Both cities were perceived to be high on the scale of business friendliness and connectivity.